Liberty High School’s newspaper staff takes top honors in competition
There were years they won the most awards, but never THE award for best Clark County high school newspaper.
For the past four years, The Tribune staff at Liberty High School has been stuck at third place in the Clark County High School Journalism Awards. They landed second in 2008 and squeezed by with an honorable mention in 2007. But they were never recognized as the best standard-format newspaper.
“We’ve gotten real close,” said Joshua Wikler, eight-year adviser to a student staff that has grown to 30. “Every year, I tell disappointed students, ‘Great job. You’re No. 1 in my book.”
“I don’t have to do it today,” Wikler said Monday at the 37th annual Clark County High School Journalism Awards hosted by the Las Vegas Review-Journal at the Suncoast hotel and casino.
It was Liberty’s year, winning 18 awards in all, including the coveted First Amendment award for fighting for freedom of the press.
“Thank you, guys,” said Wikler, who was quiet and teary-eyed as his students jumped and shouted at the best student newspaper announcement. “I’m really, really happy.”
Several Tribune staffers replied, “We’re really happy, too.”
Editor-In-Chief and Liberty senior Brittney Loiselle was shocked. She wasn’t expecting the top prize because it was a high-turnover year for the paper’s staff.
“But everything fit together like a puzzle,” she said after the awards lunch before celebrating staffers went back to school. They have one more issue of The Tribune to put out before summer break.
“Let’s go make a newspaper,” Loiselle said.
The night’s other big winners were Dyuce Woodson of Spring Valley High School’s The Grizzly Growler and Jennifer Jeong of Coronado High School’s The Roar, who were each awarded $2,000 R-Jeneration scholarships.
They belong to the Review-Journal’s mentoring program for high school journalists and both plan to study journalism in college. Woodson plans to attend the University of Oregon, and Jeong plans to attend New York University.
Still, Jeong is “a little nervous” about going into journalism at such a tumultuous time for the profession.
“But I really love doing this,” she said.
Contact reporter Trevon Milliard at tmilliard@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0279.
